“When recovering after a crisis like COVID-19, resilience should be a key consideration for people, countries and businesses,” said Adriano Lanzilotto, operations vice president and client service manager for FM Global’s London operations. “The 2020 FM Global Resilience Index provides a strong indication of how a country’s business environment may fare during the recovery phase, and how quickly organisations in that country might be able to bounce back from the economic damage caused by COVID-19. This insight can be vital for making significant decisions as they establish or relocate facilities, expand supply chains and engage new markets.”
FM Global also pointed out that conventional business risks such as political upheavals, cyberattacks and natural catastrophes continued to pose threats.
“Unfortunately, a devastating global situation like COVID-19 does not stop other disasters from occurring,” Lanzilotto said. “With this in mind, it is critical that businesses are diligent and make use of data-driven risk-and-resilience analysis, coupled with appropriate engineering-led loss prevention, to preserve a company’s value and growth opportunities throughout these difficult times.”
Top 10 countries for resilience
The index’s top-ranked regions are:
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Denmark
- Germany
- Sweden
- Finland
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- Central United States
- Eastern United States
Both the US and China are divided into three regions with differing natural hazard exposures, FM Global said.
Norway took the top spot in the survey for the second consecutive year, supported by strong economic productivity, a stable political environment, low corruption, high natural hazard risk quality and robust corporate governance, FM Global said.
Australia finished in 17th place, one spot behind Canada, with an overall score of 90.1. New Zealand actually finished ahead of Australia in 15th spot. Its overall score was 90.5.
In terms of some of the chief Asia-Pacific hotspots, Hong Kong led the way with a score of 88.3, ranking in spot number 19, followed by Singapore with a ranking of 22 and a score of 86.7. Indonesia ranked in 80th spot, with a score of 44.1. Malaysia was much higher with a ranking of 41, and an overall score of 66.5; and the Philippines ranked 94th with a score of 40.3.
Bottom 10 countries for resilience
The least resilient regions in the survey are:
- Haiti
- Venezuela
- Ethiopia
- Chad
- Lebanon
- Iran
- Mozambique
- Mali
- Nepal
- Nicaragua
A major climber in this year’s index was Taiwan, which shot up 14 places to 29th, based on improvements in its urbanisation rate, natural hazard risk quality, and the quality of its transport and utility infrastructure. Taiwan’s urbanisation rate saw substantial improvement, moving the country up 42 places in that metric.
The Dominican Republic, meanwhile, saw the biggest drop on the index, falling 42 places to 90th place due to increases in its urbanisation rate and cyber risk, FM Global said.
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